[hattar]

> Putting the (very valid) reasons for not having human-readable game saves aside,

I don't follow. What would the reasons be?

[gsinclair]

A human-readable game save file is presumably human-editable.

[RHSeeger]

Most binary save game files are human editable, too; unless they go through a separate encoding stage.

[kadoban]

Require a hash in the file to match the rest of the file if you want to avoid effortless changes to the file.

(There is no way to prevent changes by a knowledgeable person with time or tools, so that's not a goal)

[mrguyorama]

Before game companies earned all their profit through selling cosmetics and premium currency nobody cared if you cheated at your single player game and nobody SHOULD care if you want to give yourself extra money.

It's only now that single player progress is profitable to sell that video games have taken save game encryption to be default.

It's so stupid.

[trinix912]

Mostly to prevent people and programs from editing them, obfuscating implementation details, reducing file sizes (say had they used XML vs. binary)...

[egypturnash]

Higher barrier to cheating.

[hattar]

It's a single player game. Cheat codes are built into it by design.

[RGamma]

HESOYAM